It is 6 a.m. in the parking lot outside the La Fiesta supermarket in Immokalee, Fla. Rodrigo Ortiz, a 26-year-old farmworker, waits forlornly in the half light for work in the tomato fields. White-painted school buses with logos such as “P. Cardenas Harvesting” are slowly filling with fieldworkers. Knots of men and a few women, speaking softly in Spanish and Creole, are clustered on the asphalt or seated at a few picnic tables waiting for crew leaders to herd them onto the buses, some of which will travel two hours to fields. Roosters are crowing as the first light of dawn rises over the cacophony. Men shovel ice into 10-gallon plastic containers from an ice maker next to the supermarket, which opens at 3:30 a.m. to sell tacos and other food to the workers. The containers—which they lug to pickup trucks—provide water for the pickers in the sweltering, humid fields where temperatures soar to 90 degrees and above.

(Illustration by Mr. Fish)

Ortiz, a short man in a tattered baseball cap and soiled black pants that are too long and spill over the tops of his worn canvas sneakers, is not fortunate this day. By 7 a.m. the last buses leave without him. He heads back to the overcrowded trailer he shares with several other men. There are always workers left behind at these predawn pickup sites where hundreds congregate in the hopes of getting work. Nearly 90 percent of the workers are young, single immigrant men, and at least half lack proper documents or authorization to work in the United States.

Harvesting tomatoes is an endeavor that comes with erratic and unpredictable hours, weeks with overtime and weeks with little to do and no guarantees about wages. Once it starts to rain, workers are packed back onto the buses and sent home, their workday abruptly at an end. Ortiz and the other laborers congregate at the pickup points every morning never sure if there will be work. And when they do find daywork they are paid only for what they pick.

“I only had three days of work this week,” Ortiz says mournfully. “I don’t know how I will pay my rent.”

Ortiz, who along with many others among these migrant workers sends about $100 home to Mexico every month to support elderly parents, works under conditions in these fields that replicates medieval serfdom and at times descends into outright slavery. He lives far below the poverty line. He has no job security, no workers’ compensation, no disability insurance, no paid time off, no access to medical care, Social Security, Medicaid or food stamps and no protection from the abusive conditions in the fields. The agricultural industry has a death rate nearly six times higher than most other industries, and the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that of the 2 million farmworkers in the United States 300,000 suffer pesticide poisoning every year.

“We are standing on the threshold of achieving significant change in the agricultural industry,” Marc Rodrigues, with the Student/Farmworker Alliance, tells me later in the day at the CIW office in Immokalee. “But if the supermarkets do not participate and support it then it will not go any further. Their lack of participation threatens to undermine what the workers and their allies have accomplished. They represent a tremendous amount of tomato purchasing. They wield a lot of influence over conditions in the field. For those growers not enamored of the concept of workers attaining rights and being treated with dignity, they will know that there is always a market for their tomatoes with no questions asked, where nothing is governed by a code of conduct or transparency. If we succeed, this will help lift farmworkers, who do one of the most important, dangerous and undervalued jobs in our society, out of grinding poverty into one where they can have a slightly more decent and normal life and provide for their families.”

The next major mobilization in the campaign will take place at noon Oct. 21 outside Trader Joe’s corporate headquarters in Monrovia, Calif. This will follow a week of local actions to target supermarkets across the country. To thwart the campaign, the public relations departments of Trader Joe’s, Publix and other supermarkets are churning out lies and half truths, as well as engaging in unsettling acts of intimidation and surveillance. Publix sent out an employee posing as a documentary filmmaker to record the activities of the organizers.

“Publix has a cabal of labor relations, human relations and public relations employees who very frequently descend from corporate headquarters in Lakeland, Fla.—or one of their regional offices—and show up at our demonstrations,” says Rodrigues. “They watch us with or without cameras. They constantly attempt to deflect us: If we attempt to speak to consumers or store managers these people will intercept us and try to guide us away. These people in suits and ties come up to us and refer to us by our first names—as if they know us—in a sort of bizarre, naked attempt at intimidation.”

If you live in a community that has a Whole Foods, which is the only major supermarket chain to sign the agreement, shop there and send a letter to competing supermarkets telling them that you will not return as a customer until they too sign the CIW Fair Food Agreement. Details about planned protests around the country can be found on the CIW website.

Workers in the fields earn about 50 cents for picking a bucket containing 32 pounds of tomatoes. These workers make only $10,000 to $12,000 a year, much of which they send home. The $10,000-$12,000 range, because it includes the higher pay of supervisors, means the real wages of the pickers are usually less than $10,000 a year. Wages have remained stagnant since 1980. A worker must pick 2.25 tons of tomatoes to make minimum wage during one of the grueling 10-hour workdays. This is twice what they had to pick 30 years ago for the same amount of money. Most workers pick about 150 buckets a day. And these workers have been rendered powerless by law. In Florida, collective bargaining is illegal, one of the legacies of Jim Crow practices designed to keep blacks poor and disempowered. Today the ban on collective bargaining serves the same purpose in thwarting the organizing efforts of the some 30,000 Hispanic, Mayan and Haitian agricultural laborers who plant and harvest 30,000 acres of tomatoes.

The CIW, which organized a nationwide boycott in 2001 against Taco Bell, forced several major fast food chains including Yum Brands, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods Market, Compass Group, Bon Appétit Management Co., Aramark and Sodexo to sign the agreement, which demands more humane labor standards from their Florida tomato suppliers and an increase of a penny per bucket. But if the major supermarkets too do not sign this agreement, growers who verbally, sexually and physically abuse workers will be able to continue selling tomatoes to the supermarkets. This could leave at least half of all the fields without protection, making uniform enforcement of the agreement throughout the fields difficult if not impossible.

“Supply chains are very opaque and secretive,” says Gerardo Reyes, a farmworker and CIW staff member. “This is one of the reasons a lot of these abuses continue. The corporations can always feign that they did not know the abuses were happening or that they had any responsibility for them as long as there is no transparency or accountability.”

One of the most celebrated modern cases of fieldworker slavery was uncovered in November 2007 after three workers escaped from a box truck in which they had been locked. They and 12 others had been held as slaves for two and a half years. They had to relieve themselves in a corner of the truck at night and pay five dollars if they wanted to bathe with a garden hose. They were routinely beaten. Some were chained to poles at times. During the days they worked on some of the largest farms in Florida. It was the seventh such documented case of slavery in a decade.

“As long as the supermarket industry refuses to sign this agreement it gives the growers an escape,” says Reyes. “We need to bring the pressure of more buyers who will sign the agreement to protect the workers. We have gotten all of the major corporations within the fast food industry and food providers to sign this agreement. Two of the three most important buyers within the industry are on board. But if these supermarkets continue to hold out they can put all the mechanisms we have set in place for control at risk. If Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s and other supermarkets say the only criteria is buying from those growers who offer the lowest possible price then we will not be able to curb abuses. If the agreement is in place and there is another case of slavery then the growers will be put in a penalty box. If we do not have the ability to impose penalties then there will always be a way for abusive growers to sell. The agreement calls on these corporations to stop buying from growers, for example, that use slave labor. Without the agreement there is no check on these practices.”

“Supermarkets, such as Trader Joe’s, insist they are responsible and fair,” Reyes goes on. “They use their public relations to present themselves as a good corporation. They sell this idea of fairness, this disguise. They use this more sophisticated public relations campaign, one that presents them as a friend of workers, while at the same time locking workers out of the discussion and kicking us out of the room. They want business as usual. They do not want people to question how their profits are created. We have to fight not only them but this sophisticated public relations tactic. We are on the verge of a systemic change, but corporations like Trader Joe’s are using all their power to push us back.”

Members and supporters of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers will march from a Trader Joe’s store at 604 W. Huntington Dr. in Monrovia, Calif., to the market chain’s headquarter a mile away, starting at noon Oct. 21. The farmworkers organization is demanding that Trader Joe’s support the human rights of the men and women who harvest tomatoes sold in its stores. For more information, click here, send an email to damara@justharvestusa.org or telephone (510) 725-8752 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (510) 725-8752 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

25 Comments so far

Well, expecting that Aldi (a hyperconservative German family that owns Trader Joe’s) will budge is kind of unrealistic, noble as it may be. Even more extremely than Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s sells a feel-good lifestyle for liberals who’d rather not think too long or too hard about where their money is going.

Of course the laborers deserve to be treated fairly. But really, who in his/her right mind and with three functioning taste buds buys tomatoes from a supermarket to begin with?

Sorry Chris, this is all the price of supporting illegal immigration. Until these workers adopt the methods and restrictions of Caesar Chavez they will continue to be exploited. And there will continue to be cases of virtual slavery discovered.

How anyone can call themselves Progressive and support the exploitation of these workers is beyond understanding.

You have a point, however, buying the produce is not the same as actually supporting the business’s involved and helping them exploit these poor workers. And the thing that strikes me most is remembering what Chavez said about it’s not just the undocumented that suffer, it’s the American worker too. Our fields are not just serviced by the undocumented, no matter what the Right say’s.

Good point indeed. If we tried to consume only products produced by people who were paid American standard-of-living wages, there would be nothing. People can understand the situation and purchase responsibly as much as possible, but all that’s accomplishing is salving their personal consciences — like ecologically correct consuming (“It’s not my fault; I bought only green socially responsible stuff”). It won’t help to have lived that way once the big crunchdown begins in earnest.

The business wing of the right wing says that they have to offsource jobs because the American workers are paid so much more than third world peasants. They say that it’s because American workers are selfish (not because our way of life is barely affordable even with “living” wages) and that if we had real competitive community spirit, we’d give up all that minimum wage b.s. and enthusiastically join in on the race to the bottom, assured that because we’re God-blessed Americans we’d somehow come out on top.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Nearly 90 percent of the workers are young, single immigrant men, and at least half lack proper documents or authorization to work in the United States.” I’ll bet it’s considerably more than 50%. The workers don’t belong here. They are exploited by big and small Agra business. The tomato industry makes billions for its wealthy owners. We have to pay $2 a pound in the grocery store for tomatoes. Losers: American consumers & Illegals; Winners: Wealthy Agra Business owners

Simple solution is to grow your own. I grew cherry tomatoes this years. It was fun and easy. I’m not a gardener. I think we should be given tax credits for planting fruit trees. Zucchini is easy to grow and produces so much that the excess could be given to food banks. If the masses started to grow food big time, prices would come down. Grocery stores would not be able to charge so much.

Supporting our illegal problem is not a solution. Illegals need to fight for their rights in their own countries. If we stopped illegal immigration and tomatoes rotted in the fields and the price of ketchup skyrocketed then we would start growing our own. Local small organic farms would spring up. The price of tomatoes would go down. We would not have an illegal problem and the only losers would be those getting rich charging $2 for tomatoes.

I don’t know what is worse, your suburban-bourgeois-liberal self-absorbed smugness or your complete lack of understanding understanding of basic economics.

The Mexican/central American workers worker’s alternative is either to come up here for work or watch themselves and their families starve. Understand? What would YOU do if you were in their situation?

The Mexican/Central American worker’s should overthrow their masters or remain poor for a few more centuries. How about a Mexican/Central American Spring? The easy way is to head north. We have problems of our own.

Those Mexican/Central American workers have been governed by “masters” installed and protected by higher and mightier masters in New York (and the politicians they own in Washington DC) for more than a century. Any overthrows during that time would have resulted in a subsequent US-approved master replacing the previous one.

“…most of us have more solidarity with the poor Mexican/Central American workers…”

I do not agree. I believe you’re claimed solidarity is a liberal myth. Jobs, jobs, jobs are on the minds of most Americans. Illegals flood the job market and suppress wages. Jobs Americans won’t do, they would do for more money. No more money is offered because ‘Manuel’ the laborer from south of our border will work for slave wages.

Tomatoes need to rot in fields year after year till wages and working conditions improve. It would be a form of strike that will never happen because ‘Manuel’ and his friends are waiting every morning at 6 am in parking lots across the south to work for slave wages. Gandhi marched to the sea and made salt. We could certainly grow a few tomatoes! (tomatoes – cook and add salt and you have ketchup; cook and add sugar you have tomato soup)

Illegal immigration needs to be dealt with. No more kicking the frijoles can down the road. I’m all for putting the no vacancy sign on the Statue of Liberty. We no longer have a western frontier to explore and settle. We need all the jobs we can get for our own children and our own ex-slaves. All liberals are not bleeding hearts.

As for me, I will write that letter to Publix. There must be ten Publix supermarkets in Gainesville, and many cater to “upscale” community members. The university, added to two hospitals, seems to fuel a complex of well paid employees and the shelves at Publix all but glitter like gold. The extra penny or so is NOTHING to this operation or the vast majority who shop at Publix.

I will be writing a letter in support of this initiative.

Some in this forum are so adamant that they can only accept radical, immediate solutions. These are not likely to happen. By discarding what CAN be done, they show no respect for, nor tolerance of increments that just might make a difference in someone else’s life. Sure, I’d love to see Wall Street overthrown, the covert government coup disabled, the MIC put on virtual house arrest, the tax money collected directed at matters that actually improve human lives… but in the meanwhile, maybe small acts of decency can insure that a few more might not find themselves in slavery.

I would like to point out that it is hard to do as you say when they are harnessed to NAFTA, etc. no less than our own workers.

Can we afford to subsidize business in using the undocumented? No. Should they be allowed to come here illegally. Of course not. Now that those things are out of the way, how does anyone blame someone for trying to support their family? We cannot and must not blame these exploited workers for our faults. And the fault is ours.

One question. If you were a corn farmer and your government agreed to a trade agreement (NAFTA) that put you out of the business of farming and just across the border were business’s, a government and other’s for political reasons that enticed you to come here illegally but offered to pay you far more than you could get at home (nada) and not to enforce their laws so you could work and they could pay you slave wages there (but to you is a high wage), what would you do?

I would suggest reading Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland which talks about the terrible working conditions of the migrant farm worker and the poisons that are sprayed on the fields and by “accident” the workers themselves.
I believe that a shorter version was published in Gourmet under the title: The price of tomatoes.

I am not positive of this, but in most cases the greatest cost of doing busiess is usually employees wages… I am going to (assume) that would be true for the tomato business.

So,,, a field worker is paid (fifty cents) to pick 32 ponds of tomatoes, the same wages as they were paid in 1980… Something is very, very wrong here.

Two years ago a can of Cambell’s tomato soup cost between 55 cents up to 65 cents… Now the price is more than a dollar and in some supermarkets a buck and a quarter… That steep rise is for all varieties of canned soups however…The price of all canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauses, has also about doubled in just two years.

One would think, it would be fair to have doubled the field workers wages in the past two years, or at least a fair pay hike.

Someone is makeing LOTS, tons of unfair profit… Who? __ Who really controls the price of food? __ Fuel cost is currently about the same as two years ago and a lot less than four years ago, it isn’t just the cost of fuel that has raised the price of food so high.

Is it all due because they started using a FOOD crop (corn) to make ethanol, (instead of hemp), and the price of corn very quickly went way up and so then did all other food prices go way up? __ I’d like to know. why the cost of food has skyrocketed in two to three years time.. .

And Trader Joes?__ We love TJs,,, much lower prices for almost everything and a great selection of breads, spices, unusual food items, etc… Paper bags too.

As WayneWR pointed out, the price of food in the US (not just food containing tomatoes) has doubled during the past two years While wages for the workers producing the food have been flat or declining.

Note that many third world nations have seen food costs more than double during the same period.

Doubling the cost of food in the US is the result of several factors, including the following:

I just thought of something else… When I was a teen, in the 50s, living in New Jersey, when harvest time came, all of us school kids, college students picked tomtoes, cukes, apples and peaches, blueberries, etc… I was paid 50 cent for every half a bushel of apples back then., never saw any pickers from Mexico or South America.

What the heck has happened to us here in America? This isn’t the America I grew up in.

ALL of the jobs I worked at from age 12 through 25 (newspaper delivery, picking crops, construction, factory work) are now done by immigrants. Parents today want their kids to have jobs that lead to one of the few careers that actually pay a decent salary.

Perhaps Chris Hedges needs to do a bit more research as to where the majority tomatoes sold in Trader Joe’s come from (Mexico). This sort of sloppy action really muddies the waters and reeks of ‘activism for hire’ along the lines of what the American Conservative Union did at the behest of FedEx against UPS a few years ago (notice the admonition to shop at the ultra-faux progressive Wal-Mart of chain markets, Whole Foods?). While Trader Joe’s & their owner, Aldi Nord, are no paragons of shopping virtue by any stretch of the imagination, it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever step foot into John Mackey’s ‘Whole Paycheck.’

Well ~~Nate~~ where do you think the tomatoes sold at Trader Joes, other than perhaps ‘organic’ grown come from? __ Have you done any resarch on that? __ How do you know how much research ~Chris Hedges~ has done or has not done on the tomato subject?

I know one thing,,, about 40% of our food is now imported and most of our veggies now arrive from Mexico and or South America… And Wal-Mart can kiss my rear. I hate walking a half mile to get from the auto parts to the cookie jars and seeing 90% of the stores junk comes from China… We once found swollen cans of diced carrots in a Wal-Mart.

Got a red vested “May I Help You” fellow to see it and he immediatly cleared the shelves… He said those canned carrots came from China… Scary huh?

What a perfect microcosm of our entire corrupt and contemptible system. Most people are still under the destructive assumption that corporations “give” us jobs. That the market will regulate itself and pay workers what they are “worth”. Any study of capitalism, whether historical or contemporary, will reveal how corporations always have and always will maximize profits by ANY means necessary. Of course, that is their raison d’etre. Employers will do as little as possible, until they are forced to do more. It is what you get when you order a system based on greed and avarice.